Broken Congress will have chance to fix itself

Action on economy, corruption could reverse unpopular image

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- With congressional approval ratings scraping the bottom of the barrel, voters are expected to send a loud message on Tuesday that they want reform in the House and Senate and change in the legislative branch as well as the White House this ground-breaking election year.

Republicans appear poised to bear the brunt of voter anger and lose several seats to Democrats. But the new crop of lawmakers will have a tough task ahead, and several things will need to happen if Congress's poor image is to be reversed, analysts say. Among them are getting good economic news, enacting legislation that resonates with voters and putting an end to corruption scandals involving long-time lawmakers such as Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, or Rep. William Jefferson, D-La.

"What they need is the appearance of dealing with and finding solutions to the nation's toughest problems," including the economy, energy and Iraq, says Stuart Rothenberg of the Rothenberg Political Report.

Judging from the current environment, lawmakers have a long way to go before winning back the public's favor. In a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, a whopping 79% of respondents disapproved of the job Congress is doing, versus just 12% who approved.

How did we get here?

With some exceptions -- a notable recent example is the post-Sept. 11, 2001 period -- Congress as an institution has rarely been popular with voters, and lawmakers have lost even more status in the eyes of the public since the 1990s, observers say.

In their 2006 book, The Broken Branch, political scholars Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann wrote that the 1994 sweep of Congress by the Republicans weakened the institution and left it bitterly divided between the two parties. As the partisan bickering intensified on Capitol Hill, the public's opinion of Congress sank.

Because of Senate rules that require supermajorities for most bills to be passed, a determined minority can block the majority from getting much done, especially if that party also holds the White House. In this Congress, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell lead his party to a record 104 filibusters, nearly double the number of filibusters the Democrats mounted in the previous session.

What Congress needs "is the appearance of dealing with and finding solutions to the nation's toughest problems," including the economy, energy and Iraq.
Stuart Rothenberg

Some of the charges of a do-nothing Congress may be unfair. In fact, since early 2007 the 110th Congress has passed major legislation including an increase in the minimum wage, a wire-tapping bill, tax rebates, a housing stimulus and the unprecedented financial rescue package.

But now, lawmakers appear to be victims of circumstances as much as victims of their own actions. With a weak economy and a war in Iraq commanded by an unpopular president, members of Congress have found themselves with a bad hand, and have had to make tough and sometimes unpopular choices.

"Part of it is a reflection of the overall economic conditions," says pollster Scott Rasmussen. "Part of it is a reaction to the bailout bill," he says, citing the recently enacted and controversial $700 billion rescue plan for financial markets as a reason for Congress's unpopularity.

Analysts say Democrats could pick up as many as 30 more seats in the House and between six and nine seats in the Senate on Tuesday. In the Senate, a 60-seat majority is in sight, which would give the party enough seats to block filibusters and make it easier to pass Democratic bills.

At least three Republican Senate seats are "gone," according to the Cook Political Report: those in Virginia, New Mexico and Colorado. Jennifer Duffy, the report's Senate editor, also points out that four Republican incumbents are facing serious challenges from their Democratic opponents: Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, Gordon Smith of Oregon, John Sununu of New Hampshire, and Ted Stevens, the Alaskan who was convicted on felony charges last week.

On the House side, one indication of how strongly the Democratic wind is blowing this year could come in Arizona's first district, which John McCain represented as a congressman before he was elected to the Senate. It's now leaning Democratic. The danger for Republicans is that voter anger at their party will unseat them in once-reliable districts similar to Arizona's first.

Several Republican seats appear to ready to go Democratic, such as the 13th district of New York, where Rep. Vito Fossella is not running for re-election following a drunk driving arrest and admission of an extramarital affair. Other Republican seats likely to go Democratic include Alaska's at-large seat and Ohio's 15th district. About 10 of the 29 open Republican seats are leaning Democratic, and another 10 are highly competitive, says the Cook Report.

"All the signs of another big 'wave' election are apparent," says Charlie Cook, the report's editor and publisher.

Time to lead

One immediate result of a more-Democratic Congress could be new leadership for the Republicans, says congressional scholar Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. And that could be one way for congressional Republicans to begin fixing themselves.

"You're going to have to have a leader who can inspire confidence," Ornstein says. "That's clearly not there" now. One leader who might be running scared? House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, would be in "deep trouble" if Republicans lose 25 or 30 seats, says Ornstein.

"I think they [Republicans] are a spent force," says Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "They need to completely rebuild." Moreover, says Sabato, congressional Republicans would play a scant role in working with Sen. Barack Obama in the early part of his administration, should he be elected president on Nov. 4.

"They're going to be presiding over huge Democratic gains on election night," says Nathan Gonzales, political editor of the Rothenberg Political Report. For a Democrat to challenge either leader would be "political suicide," he argues. Among the accomplishments in this Congress Democrats point to are extending unemployment benefits, raising the minimum wage for the first time in 10 years and giving first-time homebuyers a tax credit.

The new gridlock?

But even if Obama wins the election and Democrats pad their majorities in Congress, a new Democratic era could also produce some new gridlock.

Pelosi would have at least two groups to accommodate, Ornstein says -- the moderate-to-conservative "Blue Dogs" and what he calls "this very noisy group on the left saying, 'it's our time.'" And a President Obama could face his first challenges from both a weak economy and some in his own party "itching to do more," in Rasmussen's words.

"Congress is going to try to push Barack Obama to go further than he would on his own instinct," predicts Rasmussen.

In the waning days of the presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain is warning voters that Washington will work better if he's in the White House keeping the Democratic Congress in check. Last weekend, for example, McCain said Obama's tax policies would put many people out of work.

"But that's exactly what's going to happen if the Democrats have total control of Washington. We can't let that happen. Are you ready for Obama, Pelosi and Reid?"

Voters will remember, however, that Congress has been working with a Republican president for the past eight years. So it is up to McCain to convince them that he would be more effective at getting results from Congress than President Bush.

No matter who wins the White House, when it comes to satisfying voters, Congress has little place to go but up.

"People are angry, unhappy and frustrated," Sabato says. "Right now all American institutions are being rated low."

To turn its fortunes around, Congress will need to convince skeptical voters that it's solving problems related to the economy, Iraq and other issues. But lawmakers' approval numbers are also at the mercy of forces beyond Congress's control, and they have as much reason as anyone to hope for markets to calm down, the economy to improve and the war to come to a tidy end.

"If the country's doing better," says Rasmussen, "those numbers will be less harsh."

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